“And a crone with a boy sucking a tit with no milk will not change that.”
The smile on her face vanished. Her frown made me bolder; I folded my arms. Like, I like. Dislike, I love. Disgust, I can feel. Loathing, I can grab in the palm of my hand and squeeze. And hatred, I can live in hatred for days. But the smug smile of indifference on someone’s face makes me want to hack it off. Both Kava and the Leopard stopped playing and looked at us. I thought she was going to drop the baby, and perhaps slap me. But she kept him close, his eyes still shut, his lips still sucking her nipple. She smiled and turned away. But not before my eyes said, Things are better this way, with understanding between us. You know me, but I know you too. I could smell everything about you before you came down those steps.
“Maybe you brought me here to kill me. Maybe you send for me because I am Ku and you are Gangatom.”
“You are nothing,” she said, and went back upstairs.
The Leopard ran to the edge of the floor and jumped into the tree. Kava was sitting on the floor, his legs crossed.
For seven days I stayed away from the woman and she stayed away from me. But children will be children and they will not be anything other. I found loose cloth made for children and wrapped my waist in it. Truth, I felt like the city was back in me and I failed at being a man of the bush. Other times I cursed my fussing and wondered had any man or boy fussed so over cloth. The fifth night I told myself it is neither clothed nor unclothed, but whatever I feel to do or not to do. The seventh night Kava told me of mingi. He pointed to each child and told me why their parents chose to kill them or leave them to die. These were lucky that they were just left to be found. Sometimes the elders demand that you make sure the child is dead, and the mother or father drowns the child in the river. He said this while sitting on the floor of the middle house as the children fell asleep on mats and skins. He pointed to the white-skinned girl.
“She is the colour of demons. Mingi.”
A boy with a big head tried to grab a firefly.
“His top teeth grew before the bottom. Mingi.”
Another boy was already asleep but his right hand kept reaching out and grabbing air.
“His twin starved to death before we could save both. Mingi.”
A lame girl hopping to her spot on the floor, her left foot bent in a wrong way.
“Mingi.”
Kava waved his hands, not pointing to anyone.
“And some born to women not in wedlock. Remove the mingi, remove the shame. And you may still marry a man with seven cows.”
I looked at the children, most sleeping. Wind slowed and the leaves swayed. I could not tell how much of the moon darkness had eaten, but the glow was bright enough to see Kava’s eyes.
“Where do the curses go?” I asked.
“What?”
“These children are all cursed. If you keep them here, you are keeping curse on top of curse. Is the woman a witch? Is she skilled in removing curses, curses that come out of the womb? Or is she just pooling them here?”
I cannot describe the look on his face. But my grandfather looked at me that way all the time, and all day, the day I left.
“Being a fool is a curse too,” he said.
FOUR
Kava and Leopard have been saving mingi children for ten and nine moons.
The Leopard did not sleep on the house floor, not even when he was a man. Each evening he climbed farther up the tree, and fell asleep between two branches. He changed to man mid-sleep—I have seen it—and did not fall out. But there were nights when he would go far out searching for food. One night was a full moon—twenty-eight days since I left the Ku. I waited until the Leopard was long gone and followed his scent. I crawled on branches twisting north, rolled down branches twisting south, and ran along branches that stretched flat, east to west, like a road.
When I found him, he had just dragged it up between the branches with his teeth, and his head never looked so powerful. The antelope he killed with that grip still around its neck. The air heavy with fresh kill. He bit the base of the back leg and ripped it away for the softer flesh near the belly. Blood splashed his nose. The Leopard bit off more flesh, chewed and swallowed quick, like a crocodile. The carcass almost slipped his clutch when he saw me, and we stared at each other so long that I started to think that maybe this was a different leopard. His teeth ripped away red meat, but his eyes stayed on me.
The witch went up to the top hut at night, the house with no doors. I was sure that she entered from a hatch in the roof and I wanted to see for myself. Dawn was coming up. Kava was somewhere under a pile of sleeping children, himself asleep. The Leopard went out to finish what was left of the antelope. The mist came in thicker and I couldn’t see the steps at my feet.
“These are the things that must happen to you,” said a voice I had not heard before. A little girl.
I jumped, but nobody stood before or behind me.
“You might as well come up,” another voice said. The woman.
“You have no door,” I said.
“You have no eyes,” she said.
I closed my eyes and opened them, but the wall was still the wall.
“Walk,” she said.
“But there is no—”
“Walk.”
I knew that I was going to hit the wall, and I would curse her and the baby who was probably still sucking her breast, because perhaps he was not a baby at all, but a bloodsucking obayifo with light coming from his armpits and asshole. Eyes closed, I walked. Two steps, three steps, four and no wall hit my forehead. When I opened my eyes, my feet were already in the room. It was much bigger than I thought, but smaller than the hut below. On the wood floor, carved everywhere, were marks, incantations, spells, curses; I knew now.
“A witch,” I said.
“I am Sangoma.”
“Sounds like a witch.”
“You know many witches?” she asked.
“I know you smell like a witch woman.”
“Kuyi re nize sasayi.”
“I am not an orphan in the world.”
“But you live the difficult life of a boy no man will claim. I hear your father is dead and your mother is dead to you. What does that make you? As for your grandfather.”
“I swear by god.”
“Which one?”
“I tire of verbal sport.”
“You sport like a boy. You have been here more than one moon. What have you learned?”
I made silence between us. She still had not shown herself. She was in my head, I knew. All this time, the witch was far away and threw her voice to me. Maybe the Leopard had finally eaten his way to the heart of the antelope and promised it to her. Maybe the liver too.
Something gentle hit my head, and someone giggled. A pellet hit my hand and bounced, but I didn’t hear it hit the floor. Another hit my arm and bounced again, bounced high with no sound. Too high. The floor looked clear. I caught the third just as it hit my right arm. The child giggled again. I opened my hand and a small clump of goat shit leapt from it, jumped high and did not come down. I looked up.
Somebody had shined that clay ceiling with graphite. The woman was hanging from the ceiling. No, standing on it. No, attached to it looking down on me. But her robe stayed in place even with the gentle wind. Her dress covered the breasts. Truth, she stood on the ceiling the way I was right there standing on the floor. And the children, all the children were lying on the ceiling. Standing on the ceiling. Chasing after each other over and under, around and around, hissing and screaming, jumping but landing back on the ceiling.
And what children? Twin boys, each with his own head, his own hand and leg but joined at the side and sharing a belly. A little girl made of blue smoke chased by a boy with a body as big and round as a ball, but no legs. Another boy with a small shiny head and hair curled up like little dots, a little body but legs as long as a giraffe. And another boy, white as the girl from yesterday but with eyes big and blue as a berry. And a girl with the face of a boy behind her left ear. And three or four children who looked like any mother’s children, but they were standing upside down on a ceiling, looking at me.
The witch moved towards me. I could touch the top of her head.